Antivirus

La disponibilidad de conocimiento ha llevado al hombre a utilizar sus recursos para beneficio propio, pero al mismo tiempo, a malutilizar esos recursos hasta generar un daño. Lo que ocurre con los recursos naturales también ocurre en el mundo de los datos donde el conocimiento cibernético ha permitido la creación de virus informáticos que amenazan nuestra información.

Como parte integrante de la seguridad informática, existen aplicaciones que nos ofrecen la reducción del riesgo de pérdida o corrupción de nuestros datos al evitar el daño causado por los virus informáticos.


Avast! Professional Edition	Avast! Server Edition	Avast! Linux Edition

avast! PROFESSIONAL EDITION

avast! antivirus software representa una completa protección de virus, ofreciendo máxima seguridad de escritorio e incluyendo escudo residente. Las actualizaciones automáticas diarias aseguran la continua protección de datos contra todo tipo de malware y spyware. avast! antivirus Home Edition está disponible de forma gratuita en muchos idiomas.

avast! 4 Professional Edition - antivirus y anti-spyware para sistemas operativos Microsoft

Versión de Evaluación

La solución profesional para una gran protección

avast! 4 Professional Edition representa la mejor protección antivirus disponible

avast! 4 Professional Edition llega con protección anti-spyware, anti-rootkit y una fuerte auto-protección incorporada. Está diseñado para proteger sus datos y programas de valor así como mantenerse actualizado a sí mismo, y tiene integradas el tipo de propiedades por las que muchos vendedores cobran adicionalmente, o no las incluyen en absoluto. Simplemente, instalar y olvidar.

Todo incluído, amplia protección avast! 4 Professional Edition incluye protección ANTI-SPYWARE, certificada por el proceso del West Coast Labs Checkmark, para proteger contra las últimas amenazas spyware y DETECCIÓN ANTI-ROOTKIT basada en la mejor tecnología GMER, desarrollada en el motor de escaneo. No es necesaria una compra adicional.

Fácil de utilizar y automatizado Sólo instale y siga. Actualizaciones automáticas incrementales proveen protección de su sistema en tiempo real, incluyendo la navegación en la web. Hemos hecho avast! antivirus tan fácil de usar como ha sido posible, permitiendo al mismo tiempo un control absoluto de su seguridad.

Probado y Aprobado Con más de 80 millones de usuarios de avast!, puede estar seguro de que está utilizando uno de los productos más utilizados y de confianza en seguridad Windows. Ofrecemos soporte a más versiones de Windows (desde Windows 95 hasta Vista 64 Bit) que ningún otro producto anti-malware. No importa de que sistema disponga usted, en casa ó en una red de empresa, avast! lo tiene cubierto.

avast! Server Edition - antivirus software for Windows Servers

Versión de Evaluación

avast! 4 Server Edition offers the most powerful protection to fight virus infections on your server or servers. It works both as primary protection of a file server itself, and, via its optional plug-ins, as protection for various server subsystems, such as electronic mail or firewall/proxy.
Currently, the following plugins editions) are available:

MS Exchange Server 2000/2003/2007
MS Proxy/ISA Server
SMTP Server
MS Sharepoint Server (including Office Sharepoint Server

Antivirus Kernel

The latest version of avast! antivirus kernel features world-class detection abilities together with high performance (data throughput). You can expect 100% detection of In-the-Wild viruses and Trojan horses.

Direct Cluster and Terminal Services support

avast! 4 Server Edition is ready to work and even supports large cluster and terminal servers. It contains direct support for cluster setup, including a special wizard that makes the installation on cluster easier.

To set up avast! on terminal environment, you can use another wizard that guides you through the reconfiguration of avast! system for the work in terminal mode. Such a reconfigured avast! system looks (and behaves) to the terminal users as the standard avast! would for workstations.

The support for the terminals is not limited to the terminal services by Microsoft; it is fully functional with Citrix MetaFrame system as well.

Integration with the Operating System

avast! 4 Server Edition has been fully tested with all editions of Windows Servers (starting with NT 4.0 and up to Windows Server 2008, including Windows Storage Server 2003 and Windows Datacenter Server 2008). It is fully optimized to take advantage of multiple CPUs and has been stress-tested even on machines with a large number of processors to verify exceptional robustness and scalability of its technology.

Special care has been taken to ensure 100% compatibility with advanced server components such as the VSS (volume shadow copy) and FRS (file replication services), guaranteeing that your server will run flawlessly under all circumstances.

64-bit support

avast! 4 Server Edition works perfectly even on IA-64 and AMD-64 based machines. It is one of the very few AV solutions on the market that covers this fast-emerging platform that is likely to gain more and more importance in the upcoming years.

Resident Protection

Resident protection which is the real-time protection on the computer, is one of the most important parts of an antivirus program today. avast! features a powerful resident module that is able to detect the virus before it has any chance to infect your computer.

The file system protection ensures that no virus will be executed on startup, and no virus will be even uploaded to it. The default settings of the resident protection are accommodated to the server environment - it provides thorough scanning. It is possible to adjust the settings to your requirements; you can specify to scan the copied files, or just files with given set of extensions, etc.

An important new feature is so-called "semi-silent" mode of operation. The purpose is to correctly display virus warnings on a server system. It works like this: if a request to load an infected file comes from a network, an automatic action is taken and nothing is displayed. On the other hand, when the request comes from a local or terminal session, the usual interactive mode is used - as in desktop antivirus.

The resident module is highly optimized for speed and tested even in heavy load. It fully utilizes the possibilities of today's powerful servers, such as multiple CPUs (the scanning can be parallelized).

Developed especially to use on Terminal Server, avast! 4 Server Edition contains additional resident modules for e-mail protection (Outlook/Exchange, Internet Mail) and browser protection (Script Blocker).

User Interface

Even though the Server Edition contains both the user environments of avast! - simple and enhanced - in server usage usually the enhanced user interface will be employed (except for the terminal server). The enhanced user interface gives you access to all the settings of avast!, thus making it possible to fully configure it for extensive scanning.

The main principle is so called "antivirus task" based scanning. First, you define the tasks used to scan for viruses, including the common parameters. Then, you run these tasks (probably periodically). Every task generates some results; of course, you can work with these results afterwards. Resident protection is also a special type of task.

Another feature, closely connected with tasks, is the Scheduler. It makes it possible to schedule the start of a particular task, both one-time and periodically.

Notification Manager

To make work easier, Server Edition contains a special notification manager. Here, you can define notification objects and associate them with antivirus tasks (both resident and on-demand). Those notification objects are used in the case when a virus is found.

The new version supports a number of notification objects, such as sending e-mail messages using SMTP or MAPI (Outlook) Also supported are; SMS as well, notification using the Windows popup mechanism (network message), printing the message on a network printer, SNMP traps, or even sending IM messages using MSN/Windows Messenger.

Automatic Updates

Automatic updates are another key point in virus protection, both the virus database and the program itself can be updated automatically. The updates are incremental, and only new data is downloaded, thus reducing the transfer time. The typical size of a virus database update is approximately of 20-80kb, the program update usually has approximately 200-500kb.

If your Internet connection is persistent, the updates are performed completely automatically in fixed time intervals. If you connect to the Internet only occasionally, avast! watches your connection and tries to perform the update when you are online.

Push Updates

A special feature of the Server Edition is PUSH updates. It is a dramatic change in the philosophy of updates, usually every installed program checks periodically and when a new version is available downloads it. PUSH updates however are initialized by our servers; they result in your computer quickly responding and performing the necessary update. The system is based on the SMTP protocol. The updates themselves are controlled by the avast! resident e-mail providers (MS Outlook and Internet Mail).

The whole system is protected by asymmetric ciphers and is resistant to unauthorized misuse.

Virus Chest

The Chest can be thought of as a Quarantine area on your disk having special properties that make it a safe isolated place suitable for storing certain files. You can work with the files in the Chest with security restrictions.

The main properties of the Virus Chest are complete isolation from the rest of the operating system.

Boot-time scan

A special avast! feature is the boot-time scan. It is important in the case of suspect that there might be an active virus on the computer. The boot-time scan is performed during the start of the operating system, before the virus can get loaded/activated - thus preventing the virus from spreading or taking actions to avoid being detected.

Command-line Scanner

Experienced users may like another Server Edition feature which is the command-line scanner. The scanning can be controlled by many arguments and switches; it can be used as a pipe filter, also a special STDIN/STDOUT mode is available.

The module is intended to be used in BATCH programs. Its output is the same as the output from the Enhanced User Interface tasks (including the report files).

Anti-spyware built-in

Spyware is software installed on a computer that is designed to collect information about the computer user, often without their knowledge or consent. This can result in so called identity theft, or theft of valuable information (e.g. bank or credit card details) or proprietary business data. Spyware is often developed by organized crime rings rather than lone individuals and may be installed by a virus.

Certified by West Coast Lab's Checkmark process, avast! has full anti-spyware capabilities built-in, to make your protection even more complete.

Anti-rootkit built-in

Rootkits are programs that install on your computer while keeping themselves and their activities hidden to remain invisible to the use. They represent a significant security risk on both home computers and company networks and are notoriously difficult to find and remove. Rootkits themselves are normally installed by a virus or other type of malware infection and it is therefore highly recommended that computer users have up to date antivirus/anti-spyware software installed and running on their computer. One such system is avast! antivirus.

Based on the class-leading GMER technology, avast! can now scan your live system for rootkit infections; no boots disks are required. If a rootkit is discovered, it is initially disabled and then if it can be safely removed without affecting the performance of the computer, it is removed. avast! antivirus includes a virus database which can be automatically updated to provide continuous protection against rootkits.

Strong self-protection

Some viruses may attempt to switch off a computer's antivirus software. To help keep your protection working, even against the latest threats that may try to disable your security protection, avast! has best-in-class strong self-protection built in, to make sure, no matter what you face, avast! carries on protecting your valuable data and programs. This is based on the multi-award winning avast! antivirus technology and provides an extra layer of security to ensure your data and programs are always protected.

Web Shield

Web Shield is a unique feature of avast! that enables it to monitor and filter all HTTP traffic coming from Web sites on the Internet. Since an increasing number of viruses (and other malware, such as adware, spyware and dialers) are being distributed via the World Wide Web, the need for effective countermeasures has also increased. Web Shield acts as a transparent HTTP proxy and is compatible with all major web browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, FireFox, Mozilla and Opera.

Unlike most competitive solutions, Web Shield's impact on browsing speed is almost negligible. This is because of a unique feature called "Intelligent Stream Scan" that lets the Web Shield module scan objects on-the-fly, without the need of caching. Stream scanning is performed in operating memory only (without the necessity to flush the contents to disk), providing maximum possible throughput.

avast! antivirus for Linux/Unix Servers

Versión de evaluación

avast! for Linux/Unix Servers is an antivirus solution for the more and more popular Linux and BSD environments. Considering its robust design and mail scanning support, it is primarily intended for Linux (or BSD) based servers; it can be used on desktop computers as a desktop solution, but pricing assumes server usage.

Thanks to its flexible daemon architecture, avast! for Linux/Unix Servers can be used for both filesystem and network traffic scanning, such as real-time monitoring of mail (SMTP).

avast! for Linux/Unix Servers features an antivirus suite, which integrates the avast! antivirus kernel, and is designed to be used on a UNIX-like operating systems. The suite consists of a command-line scanner, resident scanner running as a daemon and a client for accessing the resident scanner.

Antivirus kernel

The antivirus kernel of avast! For Linux is identical to the one for Windows systems, which means that all high-end features typical in an AV kernel for Windows, are included in Linux version too.

The latest version of avast! antivirus kernel features outstanding detection abilities, together with high performance. You can expect 100% detection of In-the-Wild viruses (viruses already spreading between users) and excellent detection of Trojan horses with minimum of false positives.

The kernel is certified by ICSA Labs; it frequently takes part in the tests of Virus Bulletin magazine, often yielding the VB100 award.

As avast! for Windows , avast! engine for Linux features outstanding unpacking support too. It can scan inside almost same number of archives as under Windows, with exception of MAPI, CAB, ACE, CHM, 7ZIP and NTFS streams. Following archives can be scanned: ARJ, ZIP, MIME (+ all associated formats), DBX (Outlook Express archives), RAR, TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, ZOO, ARC, LHA/LHX, TNEF (winmail.dat), CPIO, RPM, ISO, and SIS. It also supports a number of executable packers (such as PKLite, Diet, UPX, ASPack, FSG, MEW etc.).

Automatic updates

Updates of virus database are another key need in virus protection. In the current version, the updates are not incremental. When the virus definition file is changed, it is necessary to download and replace the whole VPS file.

Command line scanner

Experienced users will appreciate a classic on-demand scanner, controlled from the command line. It allows scanning of files in specified directories and both local and remote volumes. Of course, the command line scanner also works on volumes mounted over network.

The program is very flexible; it accepts a lot of additional arguments and switches. It is able to generate extensive report files that can be used for analysis.

The scanner is able to run in STDIN/STDOUT mode to use it as a pipe filter. This mode is intended to be used in shell scripts.

Background scanner

The antivirus daemon running on background is intended for intensive usage. The daemon serves to other applications on the system, third-party applications can access the antivirus daemon by UNIX sockets. The daemon can be used in a specific directory under specified user account. A client for accessing the antivirus daemon is part of the installation package.

3rd party software
MTA + MDA:

avast4mail: a mail content filter for Postfix, qmail, Sendmail, Exim, procmail and maildrop. The software scans email messages for viruses and drops or marks infected messages or send notification messages.
avast4milter: content filter for sendmail using the milter API. It allows to drop or mark infected messages or send notification to message recipient.

Amavisd-new. Rewritten version of amavis maintained by Mark Martinec. Patch and instructions how to integrate avast! for Linux/Unix Server is part of avast4server package.